Phil Lamarr Knows What Went Wrong With 'Futurama' on FOX

[Brian Damage]

http://www.ugo.com/tv/exclusive-futu...the-new-season

Phil Lamarr is probably one of the most recognizable voice-over actors around, mainly because of his live action work as a cast member of MAD TV. But behind the microphone, he’s been working for years as many of the voices on Star Wars: Clone Wars, Family Guy, Justice League Unlimited, and Futurama. We chatted with the actor over the phone about the new seasons (yup, there’s two, kicking off on June 24th) of the show, what went wrong originally and just how he keeps all the voices in his head straight.

UGO: It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, from doing the stand alone series, to doing the DVD, to getting picked up for a series again – can you talk a little bit about your take on all that?

Phil Lamarr: For me, personally it hasn’t felt like so much of a rollercoaster, in the sense that its felt relatively constant. It was never a huge hit like Heroes, where everybody’s like, “Oh, my gosh, it’s a tremendous hit!” and then a tremendous let down. We certainly had very high hopes, but the network was, initially, always a little mixed in their feelings towards the show. I think they wanted Family Guy. They wanted a Simpsons knock-off... A second Simpsons, and Matt and David weren’t really interested in doing that again. So it was always a little up and down, and then we spent four years at seven o’clock on Sundays.

Billy [West] remembered this thing, that they put us on at seven o’clock, and they would show a promo for Futurama, “Seven PM, on FOX!” and then right afterwards would be a promo that said, “Primetime begins at eight!” So it wasn’t a tremendous surprise when we were cancelled.

And then for it to have an afterlife was a little bit surprising, but it was gradual. It was the reruns led to the DVDs, and because of the lag time in animation, it feels like, in retrospect, that we never really stopped working on the show.

UGO: Are there any differences between working for Comedy Central, versus working with FOX?

Phil: From the actor’s stand point, it doesn’t really – we don’t deal with the executives. It feels pretty much the same. It is pretty much the same. FOX is still producing it. We have the same producers, a lot of the same writers, the tone of the show is the same... It’s not like Comedy Central came in, and they want you to put in more kids so it can be a companion piece to South Park!

[Marvo301]

Futurama is an animated show for grown-ups. It should never have been on in the 7 p.m. time slot. Either Fox never understood the show or they were trying to kill it from the beginning. It should have at 9 p.m. or 9:30 p.m.